


The Hickory

by LT_Aldo_Raine



Category: Godless (TV 2017)
Genre: Country & Western, Father Figures, Father-Son Relationship, Male Bonding, New Mexico, Western, godless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 04:45:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13000149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LT_Aldo_Raine/pseuds/LT_Aldo_Raine
Summary: “How do you know all this stuff, Roy?” asked Truckee.“Well, I️ was taught."“Did your paw teach you?” Truckee thought about Roy’s father. He imagined the sort of things that Roy and his father had done together—fishing and hunting and riding horses—the things he never got to do with his own father, but now in some miraculous turn of life, was getting to do with Roy.OR: Roy ventures off into the woods to cut down a tree for firewood and brings Truckee along. Male bonding and father/son relationship building ensues.





	The Hickory

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into a fandom other than Band of Brothers. I'm excited that someone has already created a work for the Godless fandom. The show definitely deserves some love! 
> 
> This is mostly unedited. Apologies for any errors.  
> Hope y'all enjoy!

As his days on the Fletcher ranch went on and the New Mexico nights grew steadily colder, Roy noticed that the pile of cut and dried firewood stacked against the side of the barn was dwindling down. He decided almost immediately—without being asked or invited—to ride into the woods just north of Alice’s land to collect more wood for the small family that took him in.  
  
When he informed Alice of his plan, she took the announcement in much the fashion he expected; she nodded, her eyes barely flickering over his face—always overly cautious least she allow her gaze to linger too long, reveal too much—and gave a curt nod before turning away from him and resuming that moment’s task. As Roy saddled up a mare and strapped the ax that once belonged to Alice’s late husband across the horse’s back, Truckee appeared, as he often did, with curious eyes and a face so open that Roy could read the boy’s expression better than he’d ever be able to read a book.  
  
“Where’re you going?” Truckee attempted (and failed) to hide the mild concern that furrowed in the corners of his mouth and the boyish dimples of his dark cheeks.  
  
Roy carried on about readying the horse as he replied, “Gonna go fetch some more firewood. Pile’s runnin’ low.”  
  
In a flash, the young boy’s concern was replaced with a innocent eagerness. “Can I️ ride with you?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Truckee’s eyebrows created a fearsome, angry bunch above the bridge of his nose. “Why not?”  
  
“‘Cause you gotta help your momma with the well. That hole ain’t gone dig itself, and that’s a two-person job.”  
  
“She’s not working on it right now. She’s gone inside to do the washing and later she'll be fixing supper. Come on, Roy, let me go with you. I’ll help mom after we get back.”  
  
Roy sniffed, glanced at the boy. “S’gone be dark when we get back.”  
  
Truckee sighed in frustration and stepped back. “Fine. I️ understand.” The boy didn’t make it but four short, angry stomps away before he turned back and spat, “You know, if you don’t want me to go just tell me. You don’t have to make excuses. I’m not a kid.”  
  
Watching Truckee’s disgruntled, retreating form—dust kicking up all around his boots, shoulders hunched in defeat—, Roy glanced at the well (Alice was nowhere insight) and sighed at himself. He could already feel his body turning towards the boy before he called out.  
  
“Did your pappy have a two-man crosscut saw?” he hollered after Truckee, refusing to look at the boy. Damn it all, but he was getting downright tenderhearted.  
  
They made it to the woods and over the northern ridge within an hour or so. Gently guiding the mares along with a light trot, Roy and Truckee took their time moving amongst the trees and rocks and brush and dirt. The sun was high above and blazing, unobstructed in a cloudless sky, and it warmed Roy's skin in a soothing, familiar way. As on their previous trip to fetch Alice's stray horses, Roy provided Truckee with a casual commentary on which ground roots to avoid and how to listen to his horse's needs as they ambled along.  
  
“-that’s really what’chu gotta keep an eye out for.”  
  
“How do you know all this stuff, Roy?” Truckee, like most young children, was curious about the world around him. But there was only so much of La Belle and ranch life that could hold his endless attention. Then, like a shooting star, Roy Goode—outlaw and gunman extraordinaire—came like a flash upon their lives, burning bright and near and Truckee wanted to know, needed to know, everything about him.  
  
“Well, I️ was taught,” answered Roy, the brim of his hat casting a shadow that cut clear across his face. Like that, Truckee thought, Roy could look dangerous, mean even, if you didn’t know him.  
  
“Did your paw teach you?” Truckee thought about his own father. Felt a pang of loss and sadness—and guilt. With each passing day, it became harder and harder to recall the way his father looked, or spoke, or smelled. Truckee thought about Roy’s father. He imagined the sort of things that Roy and his father had done together—fishing and hunting and riding horses—the things he never got to do with his own father, but now in some miraculous turn of life, was getting to do with Roy.  
  
Roy brought his horse—and the spare mare he’d brought along to carry back their load of firewood—to a stop among a cluster of tall pines. He dismounted and went about tying up the horses. “No, my daddy didn’t teach me much about horses. I️ mean, he taught me how to not fall off, and he n’my brother Jim taught me how to saddle and bridle a pony, but all that other stuff I️ learned later.”  
  
“When you were an outlaw?”  
  
Roy snorted a laugh, surprised by but appreciative of Truckee’s blunt honesty. “Yeah, son. I️ learned it when I️ was an outlaw.” The horses tied up, Roy clapped his mare affectionately on the side and said, decisively, “Now, c’mon, grab that saw.”  
  
They moved among the trees, Truckee trailing along behind Roy as the older man seemed to appraise each tree they crossed. Truckee didn’t understand why he was passing up so many trees; they all looked fine to Truckee, nice and plenty big enough. Why didn't Roy just pick one already?  
  
“What’s wrong with that one?” he asked, taking a sip of water from the canteen on his hip.  
  
Roy glanced over his shoulder, eyes squinting in the sunlight. “Which one?”  
  
“That one.” Truckee gestured with his finger, and Roy shook his head, “Naw, see that’s a spruce. It’s no good for burnin’. It don’t put out much heat and it’ll smoke like hell.” He continued leading Truckee over felled branches and thick shrubbery. “We’re looking for a nice dogwood or beech. Oak’s good, too, but you won’t find many of those in this here forest.”  
  
“Dogwoods burn good?”  
  
Roy nodded. “Well, sure. They burn hard and hot, and they don’t smoke much at all. You can make you a real nice fire with some dogwood.”  
  
“What’s a dogwood look like?”

“Aw, they're real pretty. They've got these...”

They got to work real quick once Roy finally found a tree that he deemed fit. Ax in hand, Roy went to swinging on a short, but fat, hickory—one with long, thick branches that reached like fingers towards the sky. He made a groove in the tree within which they could wedge the saw, and then together, the man and the boy took the two-man saw to the wood. Heaving and pulling, they worked the saw across the grain—back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth—until their shirts clung to their chests, soaked with sweat, sleeves rolled to the elbows, suspenders hanging loosely about their hips. When the tree eventually gave way, it fell to the grass with a thundering quake that made the mares rear up and whine. A rough hand against a smooth neck, Roy soothed the horses until they settled and instructed Truckee to take a break. Out the corner of his eye, he saw the boy plop down on one of the hickory's felled branches and gulp from his canteen like he was dying of thirst.

Still murmuring to Alice's horses, Roy wiped at his sweaty brow with a pocket rag and panted, arms pulsing. He had underestimated how helpful Truckee would be on this expedition. Though Roy had to handle the brunt of the work, Truckee was an enormous help in leveling the saw and keeping it steady. Roy only hoped the boy could handle an ax and wedge for what came next. Fingers still tangled in his horse's mane, Roy titled his face back towards the sun, the warmth a pleasant, welcome feeling on his face despite the sweat. He took a slow, deep breath, felt his lungs fill inch by inch, breathed out through his nose. Everything around him was quiet.

“Yeah, alright.” Sighing, he turned back toward the boy, hand falling from the mare's tresses. The moment of rest was over. “We best get back to it now.”

As the sun sunk lower on the horizon, they made quick work of sawing the branches off of the tree together. The fat, long arms of the hickory now free and strewn about the ground, Roy would need to chop the loose branches into smaller sections, which he would then split into firewood. So, while Roy began hacking away at the thick branches of the hickory with the ax, Truckee busied himself snapping off the smaller limbs and twigs along the tree's trunk and branches to make Roy's job easier. As they toiled away, their dungarees became dusted with wood chips and half-broken, crumbled flakes of leaves. The hair that poked out from under Roy's hat was matted with grim and sawdust, Truckee having pulled his hair back with a leather tie some hour or so earlier. Off to the side of the felled tree, their trio of horses stood in the receding sunlight, nosing at crabgrass and thistles that lay trampled in the dirt.  
  
Laying into the hickory with the ax, Roy found himself enjoying the repetition of motion. He could feel the coiled muscles in his arms stretch and flex, shrink back, stretch again. The bone-deep burn of it felt good. His biceps sang out, his forearms straining, his palms blistering—he really should have grabbed some of Alice's work gloves. Moving from branch to branch sectioning off the wood, Roy lost himself in the labor, paying no mind to Truckee, who was tending to the horses and watching Roy with nothing short of admiration and affection.

“Roy,” Truckee called some time later. “You should take a break.”

Another swing of the ax came before a pause, Roy's gaze seeking Truckee's eyes. “Why?”

Truckee did not speak, but gestured, and Roy's eyes fell on his own hands. They were bloody, several of the blisters across his palms having opened. “Damn,” he muttered, suddenly feeling the sting of it now that he'd seen it.

“Here.” He passed the ax to the boy and motioned for him to resume Roy's work. “Assumin' you know how to use it.”

Truckee rolled his eyes skyward. “Of course, I know how to use it. Who do you think collected all the wood we already have?”

Roy had a sinking suspicion that Alice or Granny both could handle their way around an ax better than the boy could, but wounding Truckee's pride would get them nowhere. So, Roy kept his mouth shut as he addressed his wounded hands. Sipping slowly from his canteen, Roy let the water fill his mouth, let the coolness settle on his tongue before he swallowed. He tipped the lip of the canteen over one palm, then the other, washing away the sweat and blood and dirt from the open calluses. He used his pocket knife to cut the edge of his pocket rag, tore the cloth in two, then set about wrapping his blisters. He'd let Truckee's Granny put some healing salve or another on 'em later that night, but for now, this would do.

Truckee finished sectioning off the branch that Roy had started, and then he stepped up to another, lifted the ax, and let it swoop sloppily down to strike the wood.

“Don't hit it there!” Roy hollered before Truckee could proceed. “See that knot in the wood? Move the ax on down a little, or you’ll spend all day trying to get through it.” He shoved his canteen back in his saddle bag and wandered closer to the boy. “And you're standin' with your feet too close together. Step apart a little, you need to steady yourself. Good, that's right. Just like that. Now, lift the ax straight up over your head—good. Try and bring it down straight where you want it. Here, hit it there. When you bring it down now, don't throw yourself into it. Keep it steady, o'course, use your arms. But you should let the ax do all the work.”

The boy did as he was instructed, dutifully and without comment. When the next stroke of the ax fell against the tree, bark spraying this way and that, the rivet made in the wood was considerably deeper than any Truckee had previously made. A smile broke across the young man's face as he gasped at his own handiwork. “Look!” he beamed proudly, gesturing to Roy. Then, Truckee snorted and mumbled, “You know, you could have told me that half an hour ago and saved me a lot of trouble.”

Roy felt a smirk tug at his lips. “A little trouble's good for ya every now and again.”

The former outlaw stood back and watched the boy chop away at the tree, giving the occasional comment about Truckee's grip on the ax, or the slipping position of his feet. When it was obvious that the boy was about to give out, Roy stepped forward and extended a hand for the ax. “Alright, now, c'mon. My turn.”

Truckee huffed, heaving the ax overhead for another swing as sweat from his brow dripped into his eye and dribbled down his cheek. “I'm okay. I can keep going.”

“Naw, c'mon, I'm itchin' to get back at it.”

Reluctant still, Truckee was slow to relinquish his father's old tool, but he eventually moved aside and damn near dropped to the ground at the horses' feet. Roy assumed Truckee's task, finishing off that arm of the tree before moving on to another and then another, despite the throbbing in his hands, the tremble and ache in his back and arms.

“Why do you like it so much?”

“Like what?” Roy grunted with another stroke.

“Chopping wood. You have this look on your face...like when you were breaking the horses—you enjoy it.”

Roy panted and ordered Truckee to bring him his canteen. After a long swallow, he shrugged. “I dunno, its satisfyin', I guess. I like feeling the power in it.” Blue eyes looked upon the felled hickory, the wood dark and thick and hard, a natural thing of beauty—now broken and shattered. “Seeing that massive, obstinate thing do what I want, cuttin' and carvin' and creatin' somethin' of my own—its nice.” Roy threw Truckee a quick flash of what could have been a grin. “I suppose the look of a good fire in the evenin' is alright, too.”

Once Roy had completed sectioning off the branches of the hickory, he split the first two sets of logs, then called Truckee over to show him how to do it proper before he let the boy take over.

Dropping down into the grass, Roy adjusted the sullied bandages wrapped around his bruised and blistered palms. The rags were completely soaked through with sweat and blood, dirt and sawdust caked between the cracks of his dried out skin and beneath his fingernails. Roy stared down at his hands for a few moments too long—hands that had committed such violence, that had slung guns and punches, that had stolen that which was not his to take.

“Roy?”

His gaze jumped up to Truckee, flickered to the tree and the ever-growing stack of firewood they had produced.

_Hands that had created. Hands that had served others. Hands that had taught._

His fingers curled into fists. “Yeah, alright. We better get movin', we're losin' daylight.” Roy and Truckee began loading the firewood into the burlap sacks they'd brought from the ranch, sacks which they then secured to the spare horse's saddle using leather straps and ties. As they did so, it became apparent to Roy that they had cultivated more of a burden than the horses could bear.  
  
“She ain’t gonna be able to carry all of this,” he told the boy. “We’ll load up what we can, come back tomorrow for the rest of it.”

Truckee's gaze, though bleary from physical exhaustion, brightened at Roy's words. “We'll come back tomorrow?” Roy said nothing, but nodded, the weight of Truckee's grin impossible to escape. He could feel the young man's eyes on him, feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise, under Truckee's affectionate, childlike joy at the mere thought of another day trampling around the woods with Roy.

“So long as your momma don't need you,” added Roy as he unbound and mounted his horse. Truckee followed his example and scrambling up into his saddle, still grinning. “She won't.”

The ride back to the Fletcher ranch was slower—the men drained, the horses laden. A gentle breeze picked up and wafted over them through the brush and trees that littered the New Mexican landscape. It cooled Roy's and Truckee's sweat-slicked skin as they trotted along, the horses tails flicking from time to time. Roy and Truckee both did a lot of thinking on that short journey. Roy thought about his father and his brother, about Frank and the men, about the relationship between a boy and a man. Truckee's thoughts were much the same—he, too, thought about fathers and sons and about an outlaw named Mr. Goode, already a deadgun when he was nearly Truckee's age, but not as scary as everybody seemed to think he ought to be.

Alice was waiting for them on the front porch when they returned. The lanterns were lit around her; they emanated an otherworldly glow about her head and hair. “You're late,” she called, not unkindly, as they approached. Roy and Truckee made quick work of unloading and stacking the firewood behind the barn, of undressing and watering and feeding the horses before putting them to bed, and then finally washing up themselves so that Alice would let them at her table.

“Did you have a productive trip?” asked Alice, eyes tracking her son and their guest over a glass of water and a bowl of deer stew.

Roy met Alice's stare, then Granny's, then allowed his gaze to fall on the boy, who was looking at Roy expectantly. He was suddenly overcome by the swelling affection inside of him for that sweet, innocent boy with wide chocolate eyes and too-quick smiles. A boy who, Roy knew, would one day grow into a fine man, a man of honor and pride. Roy caught himself—swallowed his emotions, bottled his endearments—and demanded of the boy, “Well, son, whatta you think?”

Truckee beamed as he replied, simply, “Yeah, we had a great trip.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I just really love the Roy/Truckee father/son dynamic. More explorations into that relationship to come!


End file.
